Supports



Jan. 16, 1962 J. J. SLOY AN 3,017,226

' SUPPORTS Filed March 4, 1957 3,0l7,226 Patented Jan. 16, 1962 3,017,226 SUPPGRTS Jerome J. Sloyan, Trenton, NJ. Automatic Motor Base Co., Windsor, NJ.) Filed Mar. 4, 1957, Ser. No. 643,673 3 Claims. (Cl. 308-45) This invention relates to supports, and more particularly to that type of support for motors or other machinery for providing a movable carriage by Which the motor or the like has adjustable relation to some other instrumentality.

Supports of the general type indicated above, are known in the art, but a satisfactory one within an acceptable price range has long been sought. Cost of tools, jigs and dies has to be absorbed in the sale price of an item for the manufacture of which they are required. With an item such as motor bases, the demand and therefore the production of which is limited, the tooling cost becomes a major consideration in establishing unit sales price for the devices. Consequently it is essential to hold the tooling to a minimum and to do so it becomes imperative to devise a construction which has ultra-simplicity both in its fabricated parts and in the assembly thereof. In addition to these requirements of simplicity of construction and rapidity and ease of assembly, the support must fulfill other demands of the trade, of which easy sliding, noiselessness, rigidity, strength and compactness are of essential importance. The support of the present invention is made in recognition of the problems posed by these several requirements and demands, and by its construction and method of manufacture thereof, I have fulfilled the objectives of simplicity, ease of assembly and low cost with all of the attributes above mentioned re quired to make it marketable and satisfactory to purchasers.

Included broadly in the aforementioned attributes required of this type of support, and attained by the present invention, is provision of a structure which will operate equally effectively in horizontal, vertical or other position.

It may be pointed out that in the use of the term of equally effective operation, a construction is defined wherein the plurality of gliders each has a corresponding sliding and load-supporting contact with its rail as pertains with another of said gliders and its rail, so that the rails share the load no matter in what position the support may be mounted and used.

The present invention furthermore proposes that in any position of said support, each of the plurality of gliders will share the load with a slidable line contact with its respective rail.

As a. corollary to the foregoing, the invention attains the desired objective of utilization of rails and gliders of minimum cross-sectional dimensions,

More specifically, the invention proposes a construction providing a sliding line contact of each rail and glider at least for every 90 of circumference of the rail.

Another and important object of the invention is to utilize materials readily obtainable in the market and requiring minimum fabrication operations.

Yet another object of the invention is to provide for line contacts in opposite pairs located at diametrically opposite sides of the rail with the line contacts of each pair maintained in parallelism and equal distances apart under all load conditions or position of use of the support.

Other objects, advantages and constructional features will appear to persons skilled in the art to which the invention appertains, as the description proceeds, both by direct recitation thereof and by implication from the context.

Referring to the accompanying drawing, in which like numerals of reference indicate similar parts throughout the several views:

FIGURE 1 is a side elevation of the support of this invention in use;

FIGURE 2 is a perspective view of the support;

FIGURE 3 is a cross-sectional view through one glider and its rail and contiguous portion of the carriage body, as on line IIIIII of FIG. 2; and

FIGURE 4 is a longitudinal section, partially broken away, taken on line IV-JV of FIG. 3.

For preliminary clarification to orient the present invention in relation to its use, it may be pointed out that the support constituting my improvement has particular utility in connection with belt driving of one machine by another, and may be utilized to movably support the driving unit or the driven unit. Arbitrarily, therefore, FIGURE 1 shows a motor 10 which drives an instrumentality 11 through the agency of a belt 12 and pulleys 13 and 14- respectively on the shafts of said motor and instrumentality. The support has basic construction enabling it to be readily used with machines wherein one is equipped with a variable pitch pulley or with machines wherein both are equipped with pulleys having fixed diameters. In the first instance, the operator moves the machine carried by the support, which in this showing is the motor, and in so doing changes the elfective pitch diameter where the belt engages the pulley and thereby changes the speed of the driven machine. In the second instance mentioned, the operator adjusts the belt tension initially, and thereafter the tension is maintained by spring loading in the support. This feature of universality is not the subject matter of the present invention, but is maintained because it exists in the device herein illustrated For a more complete showing and description, reference may be had to co-pending application S.N. 478,862 filed by me on December 30, 1954, now Patent No. 2,874,006.

In the specific embodiment of the invention illustrated in said drawing, the support comprises a base-plate 15 which has laterally projecting wings d6 appropriately slotted at 17 to receive lags or bolts '18 by which said base-plate may be firmly secured to a permanent bed 19, such as floor, table, wall, shelf, ceiling or the like which will afford relatively fixed mounting for the aforementioned instrumentality and for said base-plate of my improved support.

In conjunction with the base-plate 15, at opposite ends thereof, and fixed with respect to said base-plate, are upstanding flanges or cleats 20 which are parallel to each other and extend transversely across said base-plate. It will be understood that these cleats may be suitably formed integral with the base-plate or attached thereto by Welding or otherwise, and as one example are shown here in as lengths of angle iron with one flange welded fiatwise on the end margin of the base-plate and the other flange located as a riser therefrom and constituting an abutment and rigid mounting for fixed rails 21 that extend from one cleat to the other and which are held by bolts 22 passing through the abutment flange of the cleat and screwed longitudinally into the ends of said rails. Said rails are parallel to each other and to the upper surface plane of said base-plate and are spaced above that surface to provide appropriate clearance between said rails and the base-plate. rectangle of which the cleats will be arbitrarily referred to as at the ends and the rails as at the sides of that part of the assembly and, with base-plate 15, constituting the fixed or basal portion of said support.

The assembly of rails and cleats forms a The movable portion of the support comprises a carriage 23 having slidable movement longitudinally of the rails, said carriage having gliders 24 at its opposite side margins, said gliders being parallel to each other and appropriately spaced apart to encompass and ride upon the rails, to not only provide for sliding of the carriage on the rails, but to also keep the carriage assembled upon the rails no matter in what position the support may be located.

It is an essential feature of the present invention that the glider and rail shall have longitudinal line-contact no matter in what position the support may be located, and further that both rails shall share the load in any such position of the support. To embody this feature, the rails are cylindrical with a predetermined diameter that is uniform throughout the lengths of said rails, and the gliders are square tubes wherein the inside transverse dimensions are substantially the same as the diameter of the rails. Thus, midway of the width of each of the four walls of each glider, tangential line contact is made at each 90 interval on the cylindrical rail, and as this circumstance is true for both rails it will now be apparent that with the support in the position shown or in a position upside down from the position shown or in a position hanging sidewise on a side wall of a room, both gliders will have corresponding line contacts with their rails and both rails will therefore carry proportionate parts of the load. The rails may therefore each be of smaller size than if each had to be prepared to take the entire load under condition of some particular mounting of the support. For instance, if the gliders were both open at their facing sides, and the support used on a side wall with the rails horizontal, the carriage would hang by one glider on a single rail, whereas in the present construction both gliders engage and ride on their respective rails.

Furthermore, it is important to note that since each glider is, in cross-section, a closed square, and the rails contact all four of the glider walls, the walls of the glider are prevented from displacement with respect to a wall opposite to each, thereby maintaining the several line contacts, preventing the glider from either binding or chattering and assuring easy sliding of the gliders on their respective rails under all conditions of mounting of the support and of gravitational or other forces occurring in use.

Fabrication of the support of this invention may be very economically performed as all of the parts are simple and readily obtainable or made, flat plates as used for the base-plate and for the body of the carriage presenting no problem of fabrication thereof to desired size and shape and the cleats being cut lengths of stock sizes of angle iron are readily prepared. It is also possible to obtain on the market cylindrical rods having the precise diameter to fit in stock sizes of square tubing. A simple jig enables the square tubes constituting gliders 24 to be accurately held While the gliders are welded to the body plate of the carriage, and similarly the cleats 20 can be clamped in parallelism and proper spacing while being Welded to the base-plate. The resultant structure is one providing four line contacts in each glider and while sliding longitudinally of the rails can take place readily, movement of the gliders in any direction laterally With respect to the rails is very positively prevented.

I claim:

l. A support for motors and the like, comprising rigidly mounted cylindrical parallel rails, and a carriage movable in a direction longitudinally of said rails, said carriage having parallel gliders, one for each rail, each of said gliders being an integral rigid entity on a corresponding rail which it contacts slidably substantially along four different longitudinal lines of contact substantially at intervals around said rail.

2. A support for motors and the like, comprising rigidly mounted cylindrical rails having uniform predetermined diameters, and a carriage movable in a direction longitudinally of said rails, said carriage having gliders, one for each rail, said gliders each being an integral rigid square tube having inside dimensions from each wall to an opposite wall of the tube substantially equal to the said predetermined diameter of the rail on which the tube is mounted thereby providing four lines of sliding contact with and at spaced intervals around its respective rail.

3. A support for motors and the like, comprising rigidly mounted cylindrical rails having uniform predetermined diameters, and a carriage movable in a direction longitudinally of said rails, said carriage having gliders, one for each rail, each of said gliders being an integral rigid entity having definite sliding line contact with its respective rail when said rails are in any position deviating from vertical and irrespective of relative elevation of one rail with respect to the other, whereby load will be carried by both rails in any of said positions thereof and frictional resistance to sliding substantially equally eifective on both rails in any of said positions.

References Cited in the file of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS 962,219 Hughes June 21, 1910 1,735,276 Henk Nov. 17, 1929 2,196,892 Berndt Apr. 9, 1940 2,762,662 Sloyan Sept. 11, 1956 

